Dirt Rally, is it (rally) a dream come true?

For now, I don’t have a definitive answer to this question. In fact, I don’t have any kind of answer, because I still haven’t had a chance to test this latest product of the team behind so many legendary rally and racing games. Right now, there is a lot going on in my life, mostly related to either work or more work; one of those I use to pay the bills and the other I use to promptly incur bills. In short, we’re working flat out to get our apartment ready for the upcoming move-in, so for the last couple of weeks I am mostly covered in paint, dust and some more paint. Tomorrow, however, I could squeeze in a bit of testing – I had no idea steam games work offline, I never ever tried, maybe because you don’t actually go offline these days, and when I do travel I don’t play games. Either way, this new game should work offline, so I should be able to hook up my steering wheel to laptop and dedicate some time to DiRT Rally tomorrow, to finally get some impressions.

But what is DiRT Rally, you say? Again, I cannot really say because I haven’t tried it yet, but according to numerous reviewers, it’s a gem. This is when I would like to insert a mandatory “told you so” – quite some time ago I wrote some posts about rally simulations, naming Codemasters as our best bet, even though their DiRT games were more about arcade stuff and gymkhana, instead of pure, basic rallying. DiRT’s engine, however, looked and sounded fantastic, yet the games did not meet all of our expectations, there was always something missing. In my mind, it was just a matter of time (and some good corporate decisions) – someone had to push DiRT’s engine into full rally mode. Now, I am not fully familiar with all the tech behind Codemaster’s latest game, but to me it seems that DiRT’s engine finally met its roots; the roads became more demanding and punishing, sounds grew, cars developed a different character and feel, resulting in a completely different experience, compared to the previous DiRT series products. You know how we always talk about Richard Burns Rally and its legendary steep learning curve, coupled with unrivaled physics? How many times did you wish for RBR and DiRT to have a child? Some say DiRT Rally is what RBR + CMR would look like in an ideal world.

Personally, I would like to test this game before making any calls, but I spoke to many people and they are genuinely excited about it. These are the people who would not go anywhere near any of the earlier Dirt games and swore only to RBR.

Best thing about Dirt Rally is that it’s a work in progress. Game is still being developed, even though you can get it and play it already as an “early access” on Steam. The team behind it is very enthusiastic about their project and they want your honest opinions. If you ever wanted to talk to people behind your favourite rally or racing game, do it now, because your ideas could help them shape this game just the way you want it. Seriously, they really really REALLY want your opinions. If you have the game, play it and let them know what you think. If you don’t have it, well, I cannot really recommend it yet, but again, I’ve heard some very encouraging things about it. I’ll test some of it tomorrow, until then I’ll try to keep my excitement at level 8.

Here are some of the features, taken from game’s official website:

Experience 3 massive new real-world rally locations during the day – in dry, overcast, sunny, misty, wet, rainy and snowy conditions – and then take them on at night for a very different, intense experience that will challenge the elite.

17 CARS OVER 6 NEW AND CLASSIC CLASSES TO DRIVE NOW: Rally is about having the right car and DiRT Rally will have all of the right cars. At the start of Early Access, DiRT Rally delivers 14 cars and will be adding more cars over more classes in the future.

RALLY CHAMPIONSHIPS, RALLY ASYNC & CUSTOM RALLY EVENTS: Take on a single stage and learn the calls in Custom Rally events, compete against increasingly skilled opposition in Rally Seasons or prove yourself against the entire community of players in Rally Async

TEAM MANAGEMENT: Hire up to four engineering staff to work on your vehicle between stages. Drill down and hire them based on their contract length, wage demands, and on the insight they can offer over upgrades to the vehicles you own. Keep renewing an engineer’s contract and you’ll be able to give them perks that will help upgrade specific vehicles faster.

NEW DRIVING MODEL: The physical simulation for DIRT Rally has been completely rebuilt to adequately capture how it feels to race across changing surfaces, and loose surfaces collect under the wheels during lateral sliding, creating a completely new feel to sliding around corners.

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Thanks for a great post! You actually beat me to putting something out about Dirt Rally. Here are my thoughts.

If you are a rally fan, and enjoy rally games, you NEED to buy this game. Why do I use the word “need”? Well, it isn’t specifically due to the quality of the game at this point. Instead, it is because of the massive paradigm shift that Codemasters has made. For years and years, we have begged game developers to incorporate our input into a rally game, and for years and years, our requests have been ignored. Too many times, we have gotten our hopes up, and then had them dashed when we actually got our hands on the newest rally game.

For the first time, Codemasters is willing to shape the game around our feedback. Make no mistake, this is a huge risk for them to take. They don’t know if this is going to be a success, but they took the chance anyway. As a community, we need to show our support for this risk that they have taken and make this a viable method of producing a game in the future.

I want to encourage anyone who cares about rally to invest in this project. Will Dirt Rally be the best rally game ever? I don’t know, but even if it isn’t, if our support makes Dirt Rally and the Early Access model a success, it will pave the way for more community driven simulations. If we don’t financially support this project by purchasing a copy, Codemasters will be forced to go back to the same, flawed, conventional method of creating games without community involvement. This is a watershed moment for sim-rallying, and we need to make the most of the opportunity, because if it fails, I don’t know if it will ever come again. The long-term implications of putting your support behind Dirt Rally are massive. So please, get involved, invest your money, and give Codemasters some CONSTRUCTIVE feedback to work with. They have thrown us a bone, the least we can do is put our support behind them.

In the end, if Dirt Rally falls flat on its face, we only lost 30 Euros, but if it doesn’t, we will be rewarded a fantastic rally game and the potential for more community-driven sims in the future. I’d say that is a risk willing to take, wouldn’t you?

Enzo Gaming

How big is the download? Steam says it requires 35GB of Hard Disc space, but do i actually have to download whooping 30GB or something to play that game?

I’m playing with the thought of buying Dirt Rally, because even if Codemasters weren’t exactly on the realistic side with their Rally games, they were almost always (Dirt 2 and 3 aside) very fun to play. But i’m also not a big fan of all this early access and DLC stuff, so i’m not quite sure atm. And for 30 Euros i could get the PC-Version of Richard Burns Rally (i already own the PS2-Version, but it can’t be modded), so it’s not an easy choice for me.

Jason Anthony

It is about an 8gb download. If you don’t already own RBR, I understand being torn. My advice in your case might be to pick up RBR while you can… it won’t be there forever. Perhaps you can get DIRT in a month or so when the devs have added more content. I just don’t know how long it will be available for early access.

Also, how powerful your PC is might be a determining factor. If you have a bit on an older PC, you will get much more bang for your buck with RBR as the new DIRT rally is pretty graphics heavy. Just my thoughts!

wrblog

It also turns out Dirt Rally requires DirectX 11 support, which is a norm these days, but not everyone has a card capable of Dx11 (yours truly included). I have an older desktop but a 1 year old laptop, which means latter saves me. I am not sure whether Codemasters will add DirectX 10 support, but for now, it’s Dx11 restricted.

Enzo Gaming

Right, i don’t have a DirectX 11 graphics card, so i’ll probably wait until release (DX11 compatible graphic cards should be pretty affordable by then, too).